After leaving the courtyard, Zhao Han no longer needed to hide his presence. He slowly made his way deeper into the residence.
The Yu Family was a small lineage, with only four guards hired to protect it, all of them Skin Refining Realm Martial Artists.
Two guarded by day and two by night; there was no way they could spare anyone to patrol.
Most of the Yu Family Residence lay in darkness, with only a few rooms lit.
As he passed a room glowing with dim, yellow light, Zhao Han lowered himself and secretly peered through a half-open window.
To his surprise, inside sat a woman in red with long black hair. In the dead of night, she was still awake, burning a scarlet candle that cast a faint reddish-yellow glow as she sat before a wooden dressing table.
A plain, old-fashioned bronze mirror stood directly in front of her. She was slowly combing her long, straight black hair with an old wooden comb.
Her waist twisted as she moved, her figure graceful and alluring, but her back gave off an indescribably eerie and sinister air.
The dead of night, red clothes, black hair, a dressing table, a bronze mirror, a wooden comb, combing her hair, twisting her waist...
Put together, those details might seem like someone's personal quirk to a person who had never encountered anything like it. But Zhao Han didn't see it that way.
After all, he'd been steeped in countless movies and novels. No matter how slow on the uptake he was, he knew what this woman in red was.
"Holy crap!" Zhao Han's scalp prickled, and a chill rose in his heart.
He'd run into a weird!
He shouldn't have come to the Yu Family tonight!
It was all because I'd been so fired up about coming to get my money. And now I've run into a weird.
Zhao Han barely dared to breathe. He carefully shifted his feet and slowly backed away, afraid of drawing the attention of the woman combing her hair.
Once he was ten meters away, Zhao Han picked up his pace and left the room, stopping beside another room on the other side of the neighboring wall.
He looked back. The room still glowed faintly, its light flickering without pause, eerie beyond words.
When he saw that nothing had followed him, Zhao Han finally let out a breath. "Damn, the Yu Family is terrifying. I need to get out of here, fast."
Inside the room where the woman in red sat,
the woman seemed to sense something. She turned to look toward the window, but saw nothing.
If Zhao Han had been there, though, he might have been scared to death.
For the woman in red was a Faceless Person, with no features at all—her face a blank expanse.
She had only her long, straight black hair. She didn't even have eyebrows.
The woman stretched out a small, pale hand and beckoned toward the air. The window closed by itself.
"This young lady really is the most beautiful woman in the world. Just now, some stinking man was even peeking at me..." A woman's voice seemed to come from the air.
The frightening thing was that the woman in red had no features, yet her voice was clear and sweet.
Then the woman in red looked at the bronze mirror and let out a "giggle, giggle, giggle," her laughter eerie and bone-chilling.
What Zhao Han hadn't noticed earlier was a complete human face, thin as a cicada's wing, lying beside the dressing table. Its features were perfectly intact.
The woman in red reached out, picked up the face, and slowly pressed it against her own.
The face adhered to her, gradually melding with the blank surface until she became a beautiful woman in red.
If Zhao Han had seen that, he would have been even more terrified. He wouldn't have slept a wink that night.
At that moment, Zhao Han had meant to leave the terrifying Yu Family. But, as luck would have it, he peeked through the window of the pitch-black room beside him.
By the light of the moon, he spotted a familiar outfit hanging on a clothes rack. Wasn't it Yu Qiuyue's?
Well, he'd found the right person after all.
Zhao Han quietly slipped in through the window, then went to Yu Qiuyue's bedside, ready to give her a scare.
Yu Qiuyue was a Skin Refining Realm Martial Artist. As if sensing his presence, she suddenly woke from her sleep.
Her bleary eyes flew wide open as she saw a shadowy figure standing before her.
"Y-you! Who are you? How dare you break into my room!" Yu Qiuyue jolted in fright and immediately shouted.
"Heh heh. It's only been a few days, and you don't recognize me?" Zhao Han said with a cold laugh.
Yu Qiuyue was overjoyed. "It's you! You finally came. Are you here to help me claim the position of family head?"
"The position of family head? You're getting ahead of yourself. I'm here for One Hundred Taels of Silver. Hand it over, or else..." Zhao Han made a slitting motion across his throat.
"Don't! Please, don't! I have money." Yu Qiuyue hurriedly raised a hand to stop him, afraid he would kill her and rob her.
What a shame the man in front of her didn't have the guts to take advantage of her too. Otherwise, she would have thrown herself at him.
Zhao Han barked softly, "Behave yourself and hand it over!"
Yu Qiuyue hurriedly said:
"Don't rush me. To be honest, my Fifth Senior Brother, Liang Feng, found out what I did. He threatened to demand twenty taels of silver from me. I can't refuse him, or he'll expose me."
"Liang Feng?"
Zhao Han was a little surprised. How had Liang Feng found out about it?
There hadn't been a third person there that day.
"That's right. He's the Fifth Senior Brother at Mad Saber Martial Arts School. He looks kind and helpful, but behind your back, he's full of schemes."
Zhao Han asked, "Then what do you want?"
"Help me kill Liang Feng. Once he's dead, no one will know." Yu Qiuyue's face twisted with malice, her killing intent unmistakable.
"Kill him? I can't help you with that. If you want him dead, kill him yourself. Give me those twenty taels first, or you'll die right now."
Zhao Han held out his hand with a cold laugh. He didn't want to waste any more words on this venomous woman.
Yu Qiuyue said anxiously, "If Liang Feng exposes me, M-Master Yang will beat me to death, and my father will beat me to death too. If I die, you won't get the One Hundred Taels of Silver either."
Seeing how frantic she was—and how she didn't deny killing Dong Qiang—Zhao Han couldn't help feeling a chill.
He'd only knocked Dong Qiang unconscious.
At first, Zhao Han had thought that a member of the Yin Tong Cult had killed Dong Qiang. Now, it seemed more likely that Yu Qiuyue was the murderer.
"Venomous woman. Not someone to get close to."
Zhao Han reached his verdict.
He decided to take the twenty taels, ask about the more advanced martial arts of the Yu Family Saber Technique, then run off and leave her to her fate.
"I don't care whether you die or not. You can choose: die now, or die tomorrow!"
"Rip!"
Zhao Han gave her one last choice, then drew his steel saber to threaten her.
"Gulp..."
"I-I'll give you the silver."
Yu Qiuyue handed over the twenty taels she'd struggled to gather.
Some of it was her private money, some had come from exchanging gifts, and some she'd stolen.
Taking the silver, Zhao Han flipped his hand and stowed it away in his spatial storage. Then he asked with a smile, "Your Yu Family has a more advanced saber art, doesn't it?"
"Yes, yes. It's called the Yu Family Gale Saber. It's a Classified martial art. My father and eldest sister practice it, but I don't have high enough standing, so I'm not allowed to."
After learning about the martial art, Zhao Han continued, "There's a woman in your Yu Family who likes looking in the mirror late at night, wearing red and combing her hair. Who is she?"
"Why are you asking about my eldest sister? Are you interested in her?" Yu Qiuyue's expression changed as she asked at once.
Zhao Han was actually interested in her eldest sister? That was bad.
Her eldest sister already held an overwhelming advantage in the Yu Family. If Zhao Han became her ally too, Yu Qiuyue might never be able to turn things around and become family head in her life.
"So it's your eldest sister. I just happened to pass by and peeked out of curiosity. I didn't mean anything by it."
That female weird? I'd sooner run from her than look at her. Interested in her?
I'd have to be hanging myself from the old birthday star's neck—just asking to die!
Before you continue